Wednesday, November 27, 2013

10) I am thankful I don't live in a third world nation. You know a place where water is undrinkable, where government is stalled by infighting and petty vendettas, where police brutality is common place, where the rich have all the money. Oh wait. I hate to break it to all you Tea Party fools out there but that is exactly what you are fighting for. Whole places in this country are becoming unlivable due to fracking, coal mining and other environmentally awful industries that are messing up the world good. The Republicans have taken obstructionism to a whole new level as they have moved so far to the right, Hitler is saying hello. Police are on a tear lately, especially in states like Florida, New Mexico and New York where lawsuits are becoming a daily occurrence. Even worse, in complete disregard for Posse Comitatus, we are now making our police into soldiers by giving them leftover tanks the government doesn't need because we are actually making more of them through a terrible jobs program costing the taxpayers trillions in unneeded objects. It came out recently that over the last twenty years, nearly $9 trillion cannot be accounted for from the defense budget. Yet food stamps and unemployment are the problem according to right wing retards. That money all went into some rich dude's pockets who are stealing from us at unprecedented levels. And some of you out there are fighting for them to have more. Not only are we rapidly becoming a third world nation, we are actually voting for one.
9)I am thankful I am not a young black man in today's world. I feel terrible for any black child growing up in the inner city where hope goes to die. While racism isn't as prevalent in today's society, it isn't fully gone either. The court system demonstrates that by locking up black people for far longer than others regardless of their rap sheet. Inner city schools are waste stations where graduation is usually lower than 50%. Try getting a job in today's world without a high school degree. This is why black kids wind up in the system more than any other race. It doesn't help that black leaders play the victim card more often than the GOP. It is also very bad that things like learning are considered "acting white," which might as well be " I want to spend the rest of my life in jail," mentality. Education is not acting white, it's acting responsible. And all those in the inner city who want to get out can if they really want, but it's going to be a struggle to do so. Just remember if you're black and female, there isn't a scholarship on Earth you can't get if you put your mind to it.

8)I am thankful I don't work for some Big Box store or fast food joint. My brief time as a sales associate for the Wiz some years ago taught me that. If you are looking for low pay, no job security, asshole bosses and some of the dumbest co-workers alive, than let me tell you, get into one of these fast growing fields to experience poverty first hand. I encourage everyone NOT to go to any of these place for Black Friday but as greed triumphs common sense I know millions will still trample their fellow man for the new Tickle me Elmo doll or whatever stupid fad is prevalent this year.
7)I am thankful I am not President Obama. His numbers are now rocketing past W and entering into Jimmy Carter territory thanks to his wildly devolving Obamacare plan. Even with Fox News lying about everything they can about the plan, there are confirmed stories of people losing their insurance and having to pay more, doctors and hospitals being thrown out of the ranks and employers dropping coverage altogether. These are not fantasy people either but real Americans who are, even before this debacle, never really understood how insurance works in the first place. I sold health insurance for six months before realizing that the average person had as much knowledge about the subject as nuclear physics. It is impossible to sell something that no one understands. If you think you are covered if you get sick, you aren't under the old or new plans. It will still sap you savings and hello bankruptcy. But as the GOP has ZERO idea how to fix the old way, they are no better. Obama's idiocy may sink the entire party for years to come. Swell.

6)I am thankful I am not sick anymore because under the current health care debacle, one of my doctors quit outright and the other left his practice to join a hospital one which was cheaper in the long run. And I live in MA. What this means is that because they didn't model it after Romneycare, but instead picked and choosed which laws to follow, they broke the system here and everywhere else. Anyone sick right now is in hell as their doctors may change, their deductibles are going up and all of us are getting raped by the greed of the insurance company. Can we please have a single payer plan now?
5)I am thankful I don't have any children because in today's day and age, they seem to be exposed to porn 24/7, listen to some of the most godawful music known to man ( I am looking at you Justin Bieber), have to worry about getting raped and murdered by some psycho and are being taught rote nonsense in schools. At least they have awesome video games. I had games like Pong and Adventure.

4)I am thankful Ted Cruz is not my politician. Instead I have the best Senator in Congress, Liz Warren. She is quite simply awesome. Texas, on the other hand, elected a moron who can't go a day without saying something so stupid my IQ drops a few points from hearing it. During an interview the other day, Cruz actually said that due to Harry Reid using the nuclear option in ending the filibuster that the atmosphere of the Congress will be poisoned even more. How is that even possible? The GOP has filibustered 90% of anything Obama proposes, no matter what it is. You can't poison something twice and Congress is filled with venom right now. What Reid did was ensure democracy works and even if the GOP gains control again, I may not like the results, but that is the rules of living in a free society. Deal with it, douche.

3)I am thankful that I have a girlfriend that loves me with her whole heart. Few people have someone they trust implicitly but I know she will never leave me for another man, never cheat on me, and never make me feel like a second class citizen. None of my past girlfriends can say that. Plus she is Japanese and I LOVE Asian women.
2)I am thankful I have a family that supports me and loves me. I don't get to see them that often, except for my mother, because everyone lives out of state and across the country. But I miss them during the holidays when we all used to get together at my grandparents house in NJ and have a grand time. So to my cousins, my sister, my father, my mother, my aunt and all the other family members out there, I wish you a Happy Thanksgiving.

1)Lastly, I am thankful for you dear readers who have turned this site into a minor success. I get a lot of writing jobs due to what I write here, and your feedback in the comments section is usually pretty civil, even when you disagree with me which is fine. Debate is good for society and I wish we had more of it instead of screaming at one another. An open mind is the key to success and too many today do not posses one. So thank you to everyone out there and all of you have a Happy Thanksgiving. I will be taking the next few days off for the holidays but will return on Sunday with my Douchebag of the Week column. Until then, be good.

Tuesday, November 26, 2013

I was raised Roman Catholic. I was even an altar boy who went to a church that had a pedo priest in it. While he never tried anything with me, I know several boys who he did. I went to Catholic school for 12 years, and then spent another five years studying religion in college, which was one of my minors. In other words, I know religion, especially the Bible, better than most, including the awful religious right.
Over the years, I have become truly disillusioned with the Church as I felt their views on abortion and gay people were at odds with their own teachings. Nowhere in the Bible does the word "abortion" appear and neither does any passage have to do with "Life beginning at conception." As a matter of fact, according to several books in the Bible, life begins at breath or when the baby is born. How does that jibe with this idiotic, non-contraception, no abortion, end of the world crap the Vatican has been screaming about for years? The result of this has made me leave the Church as I felt they no longer lived up to the very values Jesus himself has said.

But now we have a new pope, one that I hope will continue on his path without coming to some mysterious end like Pope John Paul 1, who died under suspicion after he threatened to change the corrupt Vatican bank. Pope Francis is a Jesuit who shockingly seems to have read the Bible and is actually following the words of Christ. Considering he was following in the steps of our first Nazi pope, Benedict the XVI, he had no where to go but up. But even I am stunned at the humility, sensibility and intelligence of the latest pope who, because of his beliefs, is now under fire from the religious right for daring to call them out as traitors to the religion.
The pope released his latest document called the Evangelii Gadium, or Joy of the Gospel, which attacks current capitalism as an affront to the poor and says inequality is getting out of control by a greedy few. Holy crap! Literally. He went on to say that this flow of money to the rich only is causing society to fall apart and mentioned that healthcare is a right not a privilege, which was almost certainly a dig at the GOP in this country for failing on that topic for far too long.

Here what he had to say about Ronald Regan and trickle down economics:“Some people continue to defend trickle-down theories which assume that economic growth, encouraged by a free market, will inevitably succeed in bringing about greater justice and inclusiveness in the world,” Pope Francis wrote. “This opinion, which has never been confirmed by the facts, expresses a crude and naïve trust in the goodness of those wielding economic power and in the sacralized workings of the prevailing economic system."“We have created new idols. The worship of the ancient golden calf has returned in a new and ruthless guise in the idolatry of money and the dictatorship of an impersonal economy lacking a truly human purpose. The worldwide crisis affecting finance and the economy lays bare their imbalances and, above all, their lack of real concern for human beings; man is reduced to one of his needs alone: consumption.”“Such an economy kills. How can it be that it is not a news item when an elderly homeless person dies of exposure, but it is news when the stock market loses two points? This is a case of exclusion. Can we continue to stand by when food is thrown away while people are starving? This is a case of inequality. Today everything comes under the laws of competition and the survival of the fittest, where the powerful feed upon the powerless. As a consequence, masses of people find themselves excluded and marginalized: without work, without possibilities, without any means of escape."“It is no longer simply about exploitation and oppression, but something new,” Pope Francis wrote. “Exclusion ultimately has to do with what it means to be a part of the society in which we live; those excluded are no longer society’s underside or its fringes or its disenfranchised – they are no longer even a part of it. The excluded are not the ‘exploited’ but the outcast, the ‘leftovers.’”

Ouch. That's gotta hurt.

As expected, many conservatives are calling him a "false pope," as he has the audacity to actually follow the words of Christ and has stopped piling on idiotic topics like anti-gay bigotry and anti-abortion nonsense. What these mouthbreathers don't get is the world is passing them by. More and more people are becoming decidedly less bigoted toward gay people, especially younger people regardless of party affiliation. This spells doom for the GOP if they continue down this path and more and more young people vote blue specifically because of this bias. Abortion still continues to be a pariah for people of all ages, but support for that has shown to be decidedly less important as voters have turned up en masse in every state to vote down many anti-abortion laws. State like Texas have circumvented that by passing laws without public approval, which kind of flies in the face of those state rights they keep complaining about. That is tyranny, not voter approval dumb asses.
Some like Sarah Palin have publicly denounced the current pope and then backtracked quickly after calling him a "liberal," like that was some sort of dirty word. Meanwhile assholes like Bill Donahue wants Bill Maher fired for having gay activist Dan Savage slam the Church during his last show on Real Time. Seems some Catholic Bishops were fighting against gay couples adopting as they allegedly commit suicide more than others (which is not true by the way) and Savage made the perfectly reasonable comment that the Church has no moral authority to say anything about children as they still haven't completely stopped the mass kiddie rape that seems to go within their walls. This is more sound and fury signifying nothing.

This country is filled with so called Catholics who seem to have no problem pissing on the poor and doing everything they can to make them poorer. Considering all of this comes from the religious right I am thankful we finally have a Pope who understands Catholicism and is trying to revive it. Jesus never said rich people get to go heaven before all and poor people should starve, which is the current GOP strategy. The hypocrisy is thick with these assholes and one of the main reasons I hate the Republican party. Thank God we have a Pope who is looking out for the little guy, talking about the true ills of the world and because of this, will probably be dead before I finish this article. Here's hoping he's Pope for a very long time.

Monday, November 25, 2013

Does anyone over the age of thirty remember the days when banks weren't soul sucking greed machines that are constantly shitting all over this country? There was a time when banks, especially local ones, kept the economy humming with low interest loans and a reasonable return on savings. Those days are long gone as many of the smaller banks were gobbled up by larger banks, especially after the Savings and Loan scandal caused by Carter, then Reagan and finished off by Bush 1. Why have we had so many bad presidents since JFK? I wonder, could that bullet that shore off Kennedy's head have anything to do with it? NAHHHHH, the media tells us.
The whole savings and loan scandal was caused by deregulation of the banks which led to massive fraud, a housing bust and insolvency for many banks. Oddly enough, this is the same thing that happened in 2007. We learn nothing in this country. I swear most people have the attention span of a drunken gnat. Deregulation leads to very bad things every time. I dare anyone to come up with a deregulation bill that actually worked in the consumers favor. Good luck.

So now comes word that banks are actually telling the government they may have to go to negative interest rates (something future FED Chairman Janet Yellin has proposed in the past) if QE infinity stops. How is that not blackmail? They are essentially saying, "If you don't keep giving us free money, we'll tank the system." How is that any different from a terrorist plot or a Tea Party filibuster? If we don't get our way, we'll hold our breaths until our faces turn blue. Real mature attitude there guys.
What this means is that, if interest rates rise due to the FED turning off the money spigot, banks will start charging for deposits, meaning a negative interest rate. Sp instead of the measly .1% they are paying now, they will instead CHARGE you money for the experience of having a bank account. For example, if you had $100,000 in your account, by the end of the year you might only have $95,000. How many people do you think will put up with that? This would put many small businesses out of business as their savings would dwindle rather than grow, except through more risky stock trading and the like. This would be a disaster as bank runs would be common, most people would take almost all of their money out of the bank and the entire financial sector may collapse as a result.

Banks have responded with their usual brand of BS. This is from Prison Planet:

Executives at two of the top five US banks said a cut in the 0.25 per cent rate of interest on the $2.4tn in reserves they hold at the Fed would lead them to pass on the cost to depositors.

Banks say they may have to charge because taking in deposits is not free: they have to pay premiums of a few basis points to a US government insurance programme.

“Right now you can at least break even from a revenue perspective,” said one executive, adding that a rate cut by the Fed “would turn it into negative revenue – banks would be disincentivised to take deposits and potentially charge for them”.

Other bankers said that a move to negative rates would not only trim margins but could backfire for banks and the system as a whole, as it would incentivise treasury managers to find higher-yielding, riskier assets.

“It’s not as if we are suddenly going to start lending to [small and medium-sized enterprises],” said one. “There really isn’t the level of demand, so the danger is that banks are pushed into riskier assets to find yield.”

None of that is true. Banks are still lending at the same rate as before, just to higher earning lenders which is shutting middle class America out of any gains made so far these past five years. And banks themselves are the ones engaging in the riskiest behavior by betting billions on the derivative market which led to problems within JP Morgan when they lost a fortune doing just that recently. We still don't know the exact amount except that it was in the billions.

If they go through with this, which would be pure suicide by the way, no banks will have any liquidity left as people storm the banks to get their money out. It would make the bank run in It's A Wonderful Life look a girl scout jamboree. Banks would have no choice but to dip into the own savings as most investors flee.

Why is it every bad idea being floated through out the EU is also being echoed here. Talks of buy ins, which would pay investors before depositors, already quietly passed here when banks illegally foisted their derivative losses onto the backs of the FDIC. As the derivative market liability is somewhere in the $70 trillion dollar range, for just American banks, this would swamp the system and no one gets their money back then. How pissed do you think people will get if they find out that rich people got some of their money back while the rest of us got screwed during the next bank crisis?

All of this is further proof that the one thing our founding Fathers feared most, an out of control banking system, is here. Banks have been screwing us blue and will continue to do so until we do something about it. The Tea Party tried until the lunatic wing took that over. OWS tried until the cops broke up the dope smoking, drum circles these neo-hippies thought would change the world. Not surprisingly, that didn't work. So the right failed. The left failed. We've failed. And sooner or later, most likely the former, this country is going to fail. As long as we continue to take it on the chin and do nothing, we are all asking for the end of the world.

Sunday, November 24, 2013

I would like to start off with the fact that I usually really like Bill Maher and find his talk show Real Time one of the best talk shows in the air. However, having recently discovered that PETA (for which Maher is on the Board of Directors), is killing animals at record levels, the hypocrisy becomes toxic and Tea Partyish. I love animals, more than people, and have worked with rescue pets my whole life. PETA always seem to be more interested in publicity and fighting the stupidest battles, rather than doing their fucking jobs. Let's see those runner ups. Trust me, this week there are some doozies.

1)TSA- As if the beleaguered organization didn't need another black eye, the GAO reviewed the behavioral team the TSA has implemented, at the cost of $900 millions dollars, and concluded it was a giant waste of money that had no better chance at spotting a terrorist than random chance. Can we please stop wasting money on mythical terrorist attacks that are never going to happen please? If bad guys strike, airliners will be the last thing they target as security is already too strict. Wouldn't they go after a shopping mall or football game instead? Here is an exerpt from a classified report that was accidentally leaked:

“As of mid-2011, terrorist threat groups present in the Homeland are not known to be actively plotting against civil aviation targets or airports; instead, their focus is on fundraising, recruiting, and propagandizing.”

So why exactly are we protecting ourselves against something that even the terrorists aren't planning? To spend money of course on shit we don't need to line the pockets of the CEO's demanding the x-ray machines are used at every airport, and to hell with reports that say they cause cancer. We are blowing money on garbage and the sheeple seem not to mind. Baa your way through the security lines this holiday season fools.

2)Brandi Brant- Once one of the hottest women on Earth, this former Playboy playmate, now 45 and still looking good, is facing drug charges in Australia. Now you may be thinking it was some personal amount, but in reality it was 12 blocks of cocaine. Ouch. Brant was extradited back to Australia to face drug trafficking charges for which she may face considerable jail time, as long as life. That a hard fall baby.

3)Anti-gay customers at restaurants- For the second time in two weeks, a gay server was stiffed a tip by some cheap-ass conservative who didn't agree with their server's sexuality. Instead of a tip, these poor people got a lecture by some holier than thou douchebag whose penis is probably only an inch long and married to a frigid wife, or at least I hope so. What these assholes don't realize is that these places they are eating at better not be a regular thing or their food is going to be served with special treats inside.

4)George Zimmerman- Is this dick trying to share a jail cell with OJ Simpson? Zimmerman was arrested AGAIN, this time for domestic abuse against his allegedly pregnant girlfriend. First off, why is this guy STILL in Florida. They hate you there with the fire of a thousand suns. Time to move idiot. And second, you just left your wife and you've already knocked a girlfriend up in three short months. Your gun isn't the only dangerous object you possess apparently. Supposedly, he tried to choke his girlfriend, put a shotgun to her face and barricaded himself in his house when the police arrived. It's like you WANT to go jail. If you do, which seems very likely at this point, the brothers in there are going to make you feel real welcome. What a loser.

5)Tom Brower- Proving that the GOP doesn't have a lock on idiotic politicians, Brower (D-HI) took on the homeless problem by grabbing a sledgehammer and destroyed their shopping carts and personal items. Way to promote violent vigilantism douche. How this would reduce the scourge of homelessness is unclear but public outcry has forced him to stop. Hopefully, he'll be out on his ass come 2014. It would be even funnier if this cock became homeless himself because I have a sledgehammer I'd love to try out on him.

6)The police- Yet another week where the boys in blue come across as either hypocritical crybabies or dangerous thugs with a badge. Boston cops had a fit when a plan to outfit all police cars with trackable GPS was introduced. So let me get this straight, it's fine to spy on the average citizen 24/7 but we're going too far if we police the police. Please. Bus drivers here had the same issue and went on strike over it. We're all being watched all the time, so either deal with it or fight for us all but stop complaining that it's only you being singled out. On the flip side, we have the Miami police department again in the news, this time for shakedowns on poor people, including arrests for trespassing at places where the individual works. Earl Sampson has been arrested almost 300 times over the years, gaining exactly one conviction for misdemeanor pot possession. Cops keep arresting him for loitering at the store he works at. WTF? It had gotten bad that the store owner installed a camera. The tapes show an out of control police force using storm trooper tactics to terrorize the citizens, conducting searches without a warrant and arresting people for no apparent reason. This is your police force America. Enjoy.

7)US Airways- I don't fly often, but when I do, I try to avoid this douchey airlines at all costs. They suck hard. Now comes word that due to one of their awful stewdresses, a PR nightmare has unfolded. Apparently, a blind guy and his seeing eye dog got on the plane in Philly. After being stuck on the tarmac for over an hour, the dog became restless and put his head on the man's lap. When the attendant became enraged over such a deplorable action, she threw the man off the plane. 33 passengers got off with him in solidarity for this bitch being, well a bitch. I hope she gets fired. And fuck US Airways as well.

8)China- This week, China dropped a bombshell that they were going to stop buying US debt and planned to use the yuan to buy oil, or direct competition to the petro dollar. This could lead to higher interest rates, a devalued dollar and much higher prices. As if that wasn't bad enough, China also said they were going to straight enforcing no fly areas over contested areas over the South China Sea that both Japan and China claim. This could lead to a war between the two and us in the middle. China needs to dial it back a bit unless they really want the world to end.

9)Justin Bieber- The devil's midget strikes again with a horrific PR nightmare in his South American tour. He has been caught defacing property, wiping the floor during a concert with the Argentinian flag, showing up late for concerts and other douchey things. Even funnier, he has released five new songs over the last five weeks and not one has made the top 50. Enjoy your fifteen minutes because it is almost up.

10) Trey Radel- This asshole Tea Party fuckwad from Florida became the first politician to ever get arrested for cocaine possession. The fact that he just recently voted to have all food stamp recipients drug tested is the ultimate in hypocrisy. Plus, in Rod Ford style, he blamed his alcoholism for his drug abuse which are not one and the same. And if you are an alcoholic, I do not want you as a politician. Resign already and go back to trying to figure out which of Obama's birth certificates is real already.

11)Rob Ford- Another stellar week for this guy as his TV show was cancelled after one airing, ran over a woman politician during a hearing stripping him of his powers and mocked another in session for a drunk driving arrest. This guy is comedy gold but the people of Toronto deserve better.

12)McDonalds and Walmart- McDonald's was caught this week telling their employees to sell gift cards from the holidays for extra cash and to rip their food into smaller bites to feel more full. The fact that they have a hotline telling their employees how to apply for government assistance is despicable at best. And then there is Walmart who held a food drive for their own employees. When the people who work for you can't afford to eat, you are not paying them enough already. Raise the minimum wage Congress unless subsidizing these multi billion dollar corporations is considered a good business policy. It isn't.

13)PETA and Bill Maher- PETA is an organization I have never liked. They always seem to care more about people wearing leather or fur than the welfare of actual animals. Stories have arisen this past week about the fact that 90% of the animals that come into the possession are killed. A substantial portion of the money they raise is going to walk in freezers and cremation duties rather than saving them. Fuck them. Even worse, their website tried to play it off as some right wing fantasy concocted by KFC and Outback Steakhouse. They must have missed the NYT article that proved they are being part of an animal Holocaust that is killing tens of thousands of innocent animals. So I guess if it winds up on my body or in my stomach that's horrible, but if I want to pet a dog or cat that's too bad because they are getting gassed almost immediately. This is the biggest bit of nonsense I have ever read and no one should be giving a fucking dime to them. As Bill Maher is on the board of directors, he should be rightfully vilified for allowing this to occur. Either fix the problem or resign Bill because this is the worst thing I have ever read about you. The no kill movement is here and places like the Hopkinton Animal Shelter in MA is a wonderfully run shelter that will NOT kill your pets. Bring it to PETA however and guarantee their deaths. So congratulations PETA you are not only douchebag of the week but a serious front runner for douchebag of the year. Fuckers.

Thursday, November 21, 2013

Two ends of the spectrum today with Democrats finding their spine and black teens demonstrating abject racism and stupidity all rolled up into one big ball. Let's start with the positive news first shall we.
Democrats, led by the surprisingly strong and smart decision by Harry Reid, went nuclear today and changed Senate rules to no longer allow filibusters of non-Supreme Court judicial and executive candidates. No longer will the obstructionist Republicans be allowed to deny appointments for whatever reason they decide that day. I am sick and tired of hearing cries of "It's Benghazi," which turned out to be nothing. On that note, I would like to point out that also today, John Boehner and the rest of the right in the House voted to cut security for embassies world wide for the fourth straight year. If you want someone to blame for what happened there, stop blaming the President and look in a mirror guys.

So now the President can finally get through appointments that have been stalled for years and possibly, even allow Holder and Sibelius to resign quietly to "spend more time with their families," now that he doesn't have to worry about stalling on their successors. Republicans have threatened to change the rules if they get back in power in 2014 (no longer that doubtful with Obamacare on the ropes and failing), but that is still some time off and, in the meantime, Patricia Millett, was appointed judge to the DC Circuit of Appeals. This was one of those nomination that had been filibustered in the past, but now sailed through with a simple majority.
Even if somehow, someway, the Presidency goes to a Republican in 2016, and that's a big IF, I still don't think any nomination, no matter which side of the aisle you are on, should be held up by more than a simple majority. That is how democracy works. If you don't like it, fuck off. Move somewhere else. I hear China is nice.

In all the years before Obama was in office, 82 filibusters were used to derail nominees. In the past five, the GOP used it 86 times. Now Janet Yellin will be appointed to the FED and Jeh Johnson to Homeland without all the malarkey. The funny part is the right brought it on themselves. Lindsey Graham was using the whole fake Benghazi scandal as his reasoning for gumming up nominations, but when the whole story went belly up, he still refused to negotiate, still beating a dead horse. If you can't find reason with someone, sometimes you have to strike first, which the Democrats did. Good.

Then there is the opposite end of the spectrum. For some time now, I have theorized that racism is rampant in black communities in ways not seen in white ones. Now let's be real: there is still racism against black people in white America. We see it in the way the President is treated. We see it in prison sentences. We see it in some communities, especially in rural areas which have little interaction with black people and only see the bad in them due to media intrusion. But, black racism is everywhere, in every community in this country and that is inexcusable.
The Trayvon Martin should have been a wake-up call for black people who instead went into the whole victim mentality, and screamed RACISM at George Zimmerman who I still don't think is a racist. Moron, idiot, and schmuck all come to mind, especially with his latest round of trouble that may or may not include a crazy girlfriend. Why is Zimmerman still in Florida? Casey Anthony high tailed it out of there the minute her trial ended. What kind of fool stays in a place where almost everyone hates you. But he was not in the wrong in his shooting from what the evidence said. Martin attacked Zimmerman and got killed for it. Now black youths everywhere are competing as to who can die next.

It's called the knockout game and it is having lethal consequences. Apparently, black teens are punching unsuspecting white people and trying to knock them out. I would like to point out that ALL the victims of this hate crime are white. Not black, not Indian, not Hispanic. Not one. In NYC, it is almost exclusively white Jews. Double hate crime there guys. How is that not racist to the extreme? Let's reverse this story. Gangs of white kids are beating older black people in rural areas across America. Black people would be up in arms, demanding justice and we would have to listen to Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton ad naseum. Now that the opposite is happening, those two knuckleheads are once again silent. I hate the two of them. MLK would disown them.

This has led to the murder of one innocent person in NJ. Ralph Santiago was killed when he fell onto an iron post after being sucker punched. Worse, he was the victim of a similar attack twenty years previous that left him permanently disabled. The teens have not been identified yet even though they have been arrested, but I sure hope they like prison. Two others have died in previous attacks in 2011 and 2012, but this game is becoming a world wide phenomena right now, showing ignorance is contagious.
Apparently, tasers are being used now as well. One black idiot, Marvell Weaver tried to use a taser against an unsuspecting target. Unfortunately for him, he almost wound up six feet under because, just like Trayvon Martin, he picked a fight with someone who had a gun. When the taser didn't work, he got shot twice, almost paralyzing him. Then after his hospital visit, he gets to sit in a nice comfy jail cell for the next decade for 1st degree assault. Guess who regrets playing this stupid game?

This is racism run amok in the black community that have adopted such a victim pathology that seem incapable of even relating with anyone outside of their race anymore. This is a recipe for disaster as all this will do is further marginalize them to the outskirts of society. We should be seeing black leaders demand better parenting, better education and better job prospects. Instead we get the "let's blame whitey for all of our problems." You can't fix a society if everyone's home is broken. This game is a travesty and the black community better stand up against it because the end result will be even more segregation and more poverty. Your choice.

Wednesday, November 20, 2013

Everyday now, some new tidbit comes out that makes the President look even more incompetent than the day before. When you start digging deeper to the same levels as George W. Bush, you know things are going horribly wrong. Is Obama a moron with such little experience in government that major cracks are now starting to form or is government in general so broken that no one can fix it? I am leaning toward the latter as I have watched first hand how local politicians sabotage their own careers for petty reasons and how greed is absolutely destroying us now.
In CT, they have been using tax payer dollars to illegally fund rich people's pockets in the scam known as Adrian's Landing. First proposed in 1995, this billion dollar boondoggle was supposed to be a center for new museums, shopping, a convention center and even the Patriots. The football team was never going to happen according to many insiders I knew at the time as this was just a bargaining chip for Robert Kraft to stay in MA like he always intended. The rest of the projects, including my proposed movie studio at the old Jai Lai building and Dee Snyder's heavy metal museum both got blackmailed by John Rowland's administration for four million dollars to even discuss the matter. This heavy handed corruption caused many of us not only to abandon the projects, but to leave the state as well. I will remind readers that Rowland went to jail over this kind of bullshit, but only for a year and a day as the sentencing judge was appointed by Rowland and a personal friend. No cronyism there as I roll my eyes.

Since ground was broken in 2001, a convention center and a science museum have been built. That's it. A billion dollars later and that's all the people in CT have to show for it. Now mind you as the voters in CT finally got rid of Jody Rell, or Rowland in a dress, some businesses have started to began to develop Front Street in Hartford suggesting that the massive corruption that plagued the state for more than a decade may be finally over but I wouldn't hold my breath either.

But this level of corruption is also alive and well everywhere, especially within the Federal government and Obama is no stranger to this either. The whole Solardyne fiasco was a company doomed to fail from the getgo. You can't manufacture a product for six dollars and sell it for three and expect to remain open. Yet Obama gave them $500 million which immediately disappeared into the void as the company went bankrupt months later, a fact even the most casual business savvy individual would have guessed. Many warned the project was ill-advised but our President and his team went with it anyway? Why?
Now comes news that the Obama administration was warned six months ago that the website was not going to be ready in time, due in part to Republican shenanigans, in part due to rank incompetence by Health and Human Services, in part due to a corporation that had no business building the site in the first place, in part because no single company was building the site and lastly in part because Obama was apparently wishing for it to work rather than making sure it did. This is NOT acceptable and the president deserves part of the blame here.

On top of all that, we hear that the website may be vulnerable to hackers to such an extent that Consumer Reports has advised avoiding the site altogether. Way to go CGI Federal for yet another fuck up that should have been easily avoided. I guarantee these douchebags hired the cheapest labor they could and look what they got in return: a failed website that a three year old on a Kindle can hack into. Wonderful.
And that's not all. It came out today that 40% of the technology needed to run Obama's health care marketplace, the one that will give out subsidies for those that need it, will not be ready by the end of year. Shocker. Henry Chao, deputy chief info officer for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services testified in front of Congress yesterday that if the site is not up and ready in time, it could cause havoc as billions in dollars in subsidized money will not go to the people who need it and, ultimately, into the insurance companies pockets. This health care plan has not cut costs here in MA which continue to skyrocket upward. My plan went up $50 a month recently. That is not chump change. Until we start tackling that issue, everything else is moot.

The plan to fix this has been understaffed, weeks behind schedule and has been stuffed with red tape, in part due to Republican desire to kill this project by any means possible. When I call Republicans terrorists, I am not joking. What they are doing is undermining the survival of this country and should be treated accordingly.
Speaking of douchebag Republicans, Trey Radel (R-FL) was arrested for cocaine possession recently for which he got the usual slap on the wrist. Had he been black and arrested in Orlando, that sentence would have been much harsher. But the real issue is the fact that this asshole Tea Party fuckhead recently voted to have all food stamp recipients drug tested which would cost the taxpayers millions in funds. Meanwhile, he's snorting coke off his desk and laughing at the rest of us. When do we get to drug test everyone in the government, especially Congress? His term which began in 2012 has been derailed many times with corruption charges, failure to report income and now drug possession. What idiot voted for this schmuck?

Lastly, I have to speak about PETA. As an animal lover (I like pets more than people for the most part) and someone who has been a part of rescuing animals for decades now, I am absolutely disgusted with PETA like never before. I have never cared for the organization that seemed to care more about people wearing leather or furs than the ethical treatment of animals. But now a new story has arisen that makes me want to burn their fucking buildings to the ground. Word of warning to anyone still pimping for these douchebags, if you come to my door looking for money, you've got five seconds to get off my porch before I get my gun.
Turns out, these assholes are killing puppies and kittens almost as soon as they get in the door. Here's a link to the story but be warned, the content is graphic.

A recent study found that almost 100% of the animals brought into their "shelter" die. How is that protection versus anything? Want to know where your money is going in donations? Apparently most of it is going to walk in freezers, animal pick up for dead bodies, and cremation. I seriously don't think that is what people have in mind when they donate to your cause. Even worse, PETA has threatened lawsuits over releasing this info for which I say, I double dog dare you to sue me. First off, I have no money. What I do have is solid proof you are butchering animals and all that will come out in trial should you be dumb enough to try to stop me. Go ahead, make my day.

They are also doing a "kill on sight" rule for any pit bull or even a pit bull looking dog because, well I don't know as I have many, many friends with pit bulls and they are awesome dogs and not the mad creatures the press makes them out as. Any dog can be dangerous or friendly depending on how it is raised.

This is also why I never give to any charity that I don't personally know. I have donated some of my hard earned money over the years to various dog or cat friendly groups, like the no kill animal shelter in Hopkinton, MA or greyhound rescue groups that are run by people I know. Most charities only give a small percentage of their earnings to those that need it and pocket the rest. PETA appears to be using their money to kill as many pets as possible. I hope they all fucking die.
And this includes Bill Maher, I guy I used to really like until this story came out. He's on the board on directors for PETA and I guess this isn't a problem for him. I am going to try to contact him and find out what is what, but chances are, that will go nowhere fast. For someone who professes a love for animals, he certainly is backing a Holocaust level of douchebaggery when almost 100% of the animals this group takes in gets killed in 24 hours.

People should avoid giving to this organization at all costs. If their $35 million dollars in donations dry up, maybe things will changes. But people are sheep, the media doesn't do their job and the government doesn't care. Welcome to Amerika.

Monday, November 18, 2013

Everytime I hear some Tea Party douchebag scream about the "socialized" takeover of our healthcare system, I want to jam my whole arm down their throat and pull their asses through their mouths. The only thing socialized about our past or current health care system is the fact that ALL health care systems everywhere on Earth are socialized as that's how risk pools work. You have everyone, healthy or sick, in a large enough pool and rates will go down; too many sick people on the rolls and costs skyrocket. As we have the worst risk pools on the planet due to a lack of young healthy people on the ranks, our costs are simply exploding.
Now a smart man, or at the very least one not controlled by corporate interests, would have pushed hard for a single payer plan. An idiot, let's call him President Dobama, instead decides to dust off the old Republican plan from the mid-90 and pray the right wingers go along with it. They don't and do everything they can to sabotage it, including Republican governors refusing to expand Medicaid, Medicare or even create a website. The House endlessly debates getting rid of it, costing the taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars, even though it was their plan in the first place.

The worst part about this is that the entire law was basically written by the insurance industry to maximize profits while giving in a little about throwing people off their policies when they had the audacity to actually get sick or denying sick people insurance because of a pre-existing condition. A person with my health problems knows how hard it was to get insurance before I moved to MA where Romneycare does work to a certain extent. It is NOT keeping costs down though, but at least I don't have to go bankrupt to see my doctor. If I get really sick again, I will be going through bankruptcy as my last illness wiped out my life savings and Obamacare does nothing to stop that.
Paul Krugman wrote about the possible disaster Obamacare presented back in 2009 when he noticed, as I did about a year later, that knock any of the four pillars away from the ACA and the whole thing falls apart. Right now, the whole thing is crumbling, some of which was avoidable like making sure you had a functioning website, possibly the easiest thing to get right which they did not. The fact it was done by a corporation rather than the government shows that as of right now, there is not a single entity on Earth that can save us at this point. Both the government and corporations have proven to be utterly incompetent in doing just about anything, making cries for a government run society, or a corporate run one, equally disturbing. What we really need is a government acting as a watchdog for the people while corporations are forced to run in a more ethical manner. The result we have now is a bunch of chickens running around with their heads cut off. Both suck equally and this spells doom for the planet.

This will only embolden the Tea Party and other right wingers to declare government the bane of all existence, that privatization is the only way to go and may lead to a crushing defeat in 2014 for the democrats who should have cruised to an easy victory. But as Obamacare goes down in flames, so goes the democrats with it. This all could have been down so much better if we didn't have such hyper-partisanship in Congress, a fact that is destroying this country. The mouthbreathers that have put people like Michelle Bachmann and Steve King into office really need to put a gun in the mouth and fire because my God you out there are too stupid too live.

What we need are more people like Liz Warren who is actually fighting for the little guy. Most politicians are in the back pocket of Big Business, left or right, and until that changes, nothing else will. We need demonization of the ACA by the right to stop, not to mention the near endless lies being told about it. And the left needs to stop pretending all is well, looking more and more like Kevin Bacon at the end of Animal House before he gets run over by a panicked mob. It is NOT working and all the assurances in the world isn't going to affect that. It could end health care in general if things get even worse, especially with the right's "every man for himself" policies.
We should all be demanding a better health care system. Not the ACA. Not the Republicans mythical health fix that they have yet to share with the rest of us. A single payer plan is the only way left and while millions may lose their jobs in various industries because if it (not to mention trillions in profits to the insurance, pharamacutical and hospital industry) the end result is a cheaper better run health care system for all. The current system is not socialized medicine. If it was, it would work far better than this privatized garbage that we still have.

Sunday, November 17, 2013

I hate putting Obama at the top of the list only because every time I have done so, some right wing lunatic re-posts it completely out of context. Then the comments section call me a Tea Party moron and I have to spend valuable time defending myself. The Republicans are worse most weeks but this just wasn't one of them and this column is honest if nothing else. Let's see those runner ups.
1)The Language Police- This week in MA, a 15 year old girl was horrified to find out that the word "gay" on the Apple dictionary was defined as meaning "lame or stupid." Having two gay parents, she asked Apple to remove the "hateful" speech, which resulted in a quick conversation back from Apple promising to look into it. The problem I have with this is that the word gay DOES mean lame or stupid and not in a homosexual context. But because we have become too stupid a people to differentiate between words that have different meanings, we once again must throw the baby out with the bath water and ONLY use words in one way or else get thrown into jail by the censorship police. This follows on the heels of a Hallmark ornament that looked like a Christmas sweater and said "Don we now our fun apparel," replacing gay with fun. Everyone had a fit about with the homosexual community bitching about replacing the word as anti-gay sentiment while the traditionalists were pissed the word was changed as well. Hallmark removed the ornament after the whole thing went out of control. Do we not posses anything resembling common sense anymore? And could we please be a bit more thick skinned and stop with this fake outrage over every perceived slight?

2)PTSD diagnoses- I firmly believe in PTSD. There has been ample evidence that being put into life or death situations may permanently affect a portion of the population, particularly soldiers coming back from war. However, lately, this seems to be the go to diagnosis, replacing "exhaustion" as a reason for someone's misbehavior. First we had Amanda Byrnes, still in a hospital for unreleased mental issues, where a spokesperson said she was suffering from PTSD due to stress from her TV show. No she isn't you douche of a person. Unless she was being shot at every day while filming, she does NOT have PTSD. And the latest one is Jonathan Martin, who left the Dolphins after a bullying scandal, is reportedly being treated for PTSD and depression. Unless Incognito was beating him senseless day after day, he does NOT have PTSD. These diagnosis are a slap in the face to all those out there who do have PTSD. And Martin has got to be the biggest pussy to ever play the game. You got bullied by a team mate in FOOTBALL and did nothing about it? You sir are a wuss. Good luck finding another team to carry your pansy ass.
3)New Mexico Police Dept- Some poor schmuck was pulled over for a routine traffic stop and for his trouble was anally raped eight times. Seems the officer on scene thought he saw David Ekert "clench his butt checks," which resulted in several body cavity searches at a nearby hospital and a $6000 bill for his troubles. When no drugs were found, the lawsuit came before dawn broke for which he may well win millions. Ekchert did not consent to be searched, there was no probable cause other than the most vague of reasons, and as a result, the area stands to lose millions in taxpayer dollars because Officer Dumbass is terrible at his job.
4)Craig Cobb- I hate racists and this White Power moron is no different. But he loves the spotlight which came back to bite him in the ass something fierce. While on the talk show "the Tricia Show" Cobb submitted a DNA sample which came back as 86% European and 14% sub-Saharan, otherwise known as black. The black lady sitting next him burst into laughter as the host attempted a fist bump with the shocked Cobb. The look on his face was priceless. Check out the clip to really get a good laugh.

5)California's anti-porn crusade- California passed a condom only rule for porn shot within the state which has had devastating effects on the community and fees collected. Since implication, permits for porn have dropped 95%, a loss of almost $500,000 in fees and a huge drop in area businesses for which the porn industry helped support. This includes local restaurants, stores and other retail outlets for which the porn industry bought things from. As they are no longer filming in LA, these businesses have seen a huge drop in profit. To further bankrupt the state, they are also enforcing a goggles rule for anyone engaged in sexual acts. As one producer put it, "This will criminalize the shooting of porn," as no one is buying an x rated movie with the entire cast wearing ski goggles. Way to go LA. These shoots are moving elsewhere, even overseas. How long can we continue to chase jobs away for some bullshit morality clause?
6)Alec Baldwin- I really like the guy. However, giving someone with his temperament his own show on MSNBC was probably not the best idea. His show wasn't exactly getting the best ratings and after another anti-gay slur arose, he was put out to pasture for the next two weeks. Baldwin himself has wondered publicly if the show will be back at all, which is not a good sign. What was actually said is unknown and to be honest, this may be more language police bullshit and not an actual slur, but who knows. Hopefully Alec will go back to acting and away from the misfire of a show.

7)JP Morgan/Chase Bank- In what can only be described as the dumbest PR move in the history of mankind, some brain power thought it would awesome to have a live Q&A with Twitter followers. What could possibly go wrong? Well, if you happen to be the least likable corporation in the country, just beating Skank of Amerika by a few points, lots can go wrong. Almost immediately, Tweets came up like "Can I have my house back?" and "How do you live with yourselves?" After a few moments of sheer terror which probably resulted in some intern running through the building looking for the plug to the Internet to shut the whole thing down, the Q&A was cancelled. What a STUPID idea this was? Gee people hate you. Shocker.

8)Lara Logan- This incompetent bitch is one of those people that I cannot believe still has a job. This is the same reporter for 60 Minutes that claimed a rape in Egypt by an unruly mob that turned out to not be true at all. Her latest fiasco was failing to vet a mercenary she interviewed about Benghazi which led to all the vitriol from the right about a so called cover up. Turns out, the guy was nowhere near the scene when it happened which she could have discovered had she actually done her job. Instead, she parroted what the guy said, turned the Senate into a zoo, and then its all found out to be a lie. I hope she really gets gang raped one day for lying about it in the first place.
9)Rob Ford- The mayor from Toronto continues his downward spiral, with the city council reducing him to nothing more than a figure head at this point. Rumors have begun to swirl over an alleged domestic dispute between him and his wife when the police were called and every day now, things slip a little more for Mr Redface. The best moment came when he was accused of making derogatory responses to a female co-worker where he allegedly said he would eat her out if she wanted. In refuting the statement, Ford said he had never said that at all and commented that he had plenty to eat at home, ending the press conference rap battle style as he might as well have dropped the mike on his way out. It was awesome to witness. This guy is comedy gold for anyone NOT living in the Toronto area. For them though, this sucks.

10)Republicans- Another stellar week for the usual gang if idiots. Michelle Bachmann said we could have full employment if we didn't have a minimum wage. For someone who talks a lot about ending slavery, she certainly seems to want it back awful bad. They are still going off about Obamacare, which should be rightfully savaged, just not in the way Fox News does with lie after lie. Megyn Kelly had another right wing idiot on who said that he had to sell his business because of Obamacare. Fact checkers looking into it disputed the claim, saying the owner had been trying to sell the business since 2009 and could have offered discount insurance for a high price that the employees would never have taken in the first place. It was all bull. Lindsey Graham ate crow for his Benghazi story that fell apart yet still would not commit to allowing some of Obama's nomination to go through. I found out this week that the number one reason no one is getting fired in the Obama administration is not due to loyalty or cronyism but the knowledge that getting the right to agree to any nomination would be a slog. So because of the intraction by the right, we are stuck with morons who should have been gone years ago. Once again if the right would just shut the fuck up and let the left self destruct, they would be in a much stronger position. But these mouthbreathers are not that bright and it shows.
11) Obama- This has been the worst week for the President. He seems not to know when to shut up and his inexperience is starting to show. It was bad enough when he drew a line in the sand with Syria, but to keep saying over and over "you can keep your insurance," when he must have known that was not true, is killing his ratings. Then, without discussing this with the insurance companies, unilaterally said he would reverse said position. The companies went nuts as this is a huge blow to the industry that requires research into how that would affect the market and figuring out prices. Worse, if this continues indefinitely as some are suggesting, Obamacare is doomed to fail as prices will continue to rise uncontrollable. Because he failed to blame anyone but himself, he and Congressional democrats are taking all the heat. What part of blame someone is he not getting? This is becoming embarrassing from Obama who just had his second big Katrina moments, after the BP spill showed similar incompetence from everyone, government and corporation alike. And for all of the damage that happened, nothing has changed. Nothing ever changes. And that is really bad because we are headed for one hell of a cliff and no one seems to be driving anymore. So congratulations Obama, you are indeed douchebag of the week.